


The Avoided case of the Raggedy Man (and the Loyal Associate)

by Emil_Macabre



Category: Dr. Who, Sherlock (BBC)
Genre: Drug Use, F/M, Other, Self Harm, mention of suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-12
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-19 03:43:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1454146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emil_Macabre/pseuds/Emil_Macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate universe, The Doctor goes to visit a version of Sherlock that he knows, needing her intellect for a problem with the TARDIS. <br/>The only problem is, this Sherlock hates him. Because years prior, he let the person she loved die, and when she went to him, desperate, claiming that his death was necessary. <br/>Since that time she had been going down a steep slope, and everyone had slowly trickled away, her hatred stopping for no one. Drugs and cases were the only things that kept her alive. But through it all, one man had stayed loyal to her. In all honesty, HE was probably the only reason she was still alive.<br/>But there comes a day when even the most loyal demand to be heard.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Avoided case of the Raggedy Man (and the Loyal Associate)

Sherlock sat quietly in her armchair, typing away. Her mussed hair hung low over her eyes, but it didn’t bother her. She just didn’t really notice.   
221B was too quiet. And it had been for five years. She paused for just a moment, then quickly went back to typing to break the silence. She had grown to hate silence. The silence there, anyways.   
The doorbell rang and she didn’t go to answer it.   
Ms Hudson, however, did. She opened the door to a young man in a tweed suit with elbow patches.   
He asked to talk to Sherlock, and a loud ‘No’ promptly sounded down the stairs. He told Ms. Hudson that he was a friend, and she tried not to laugh. She just said no.   
“Doctor, I know who you are, and I really don’t think you should see her.”  
“I need to see her.”  
“…She doesn’t need to see you. Isn’t there another version of her you can pop off and find that DOESN’T hate you?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“…I would try that before this.”  
She shut the door. Sherlock called down the stairs.  
“Was that who think it was?”  
“Yes, Sherlock, and no, you are not going to run down here and find a piece of explosive fruits so you can throw it at him on his way out.”  
“Do you think I’m some kind of child?”  
Ms. Hudson didn’t answer that. There was another knock at the door.  
She sighed. “No one is-” Her eyebrows crinkled when she looked out the sighthole.   
“Oh! Come in.” She opened the door to the familiar face.   
Anderson looked around, then came inside, giving a small greeting to Ms. Hudson. “She’s upstairs?”  
“Doing another remote case.” She said, walking back into her part of the house. “Hey, uh, who was that man leaving the house?” He called after her. She paused. “Just an old friend who Sherlock hates now.”  
“Oh. Alright.” He said, nodding, then going up the stairs. She pretty much hated everyone, now. She had gone from bad to worse ever since… it happened.  
And she still wore his ring.

Jealous wasn’t the word. It didn’t feel right to Anderson. He wasn’t jealous, not of a dead man- he was just- he was just…  
Ignored.  
During the five years that Sherlock had been going on her downward slope, he had been the only one who decided to stick around and help her. Some of the others wanted to, but they couldn’t stand her for too long. Anderson couldn’t exactly blame them.  
“Sherlock?”  
“Go away.”  
“It’s me. I brought food.”  
She glanced over at him. “Go away.”  
He sighed and walked over to the couch opposite her armchair, sitting down. Her eyes kept flitting between him and her computer. She hid it very well, but he was smarter than she seemed to believe.  
“You really shouldn’t be here.” She said, closing here computer and resting her hands on top of it. Her silver and gold simple band-wedding ring flashed.   
“You should really take that off.” He said gently, leaning forward in his seat.  
Sherlock didn’t even blink. Her face didn’t move- she just got up and walked out. “Sher…” he sighed. “Sherlock! Sherlock, please.” He got up, chasing her to the kitchen. “Anderson, leave. Leave if that’s all you want to talk about.”  
“Sherlock you need to let someone help you!”   
“A-”  
“You are going to listen to me, Sherlock! You are going to listen to someone else for once in your life.”  
Sherlock stopped dead and turned to him. Her gaze was as condescending as ever.  
He tried to ignore it.  
“I have been listening to you for the past five years. I’ve been helping you. I have been supporting you. I’ve dragged you home after finding you out somewhere with fresh needle tracks in your arm and I need you to start…”  
“To start what? Listening? I don’t listen to other people.”   
“I don’t want you to listen to other people. I want you to listen to me. And I want you to stop hating yourself because John did not die because of you.”  
“Stop.” Sherlock’s voice didn’t tremble, but there was a crack, a tiny crack in her shell, and it hurt Anderson more than it hurt her.   
“He died because of me. And you have no right to speak about him. Never.”   
“Sherlock I just want to help you.” He pleaded. Their meetings when John’s name was mentioned always ended the same:  
“Get out.”  
“Sherlo-”  
“Get OUT.”

Ms. Hudson gave him a sympathetic smile as he left. He knew she went through trouble with Sherlock, but she didn’t go through what he did.

He left, and tried not to slam the door on the way, vowing to himself that he would never rescue her strung-out ass from a back alley ever again.

 

He went out looking for her in every alley in London that night. Him talking about John almost always made her relapse.

But that time, thankfully, she wasn’t out- she was instead at home with her cat. It was a tan tabby, a little chubby for its height. It crawled over to her, as she lay on the floor of her apartment, her mind buzzing, her arms twitching, her brain screaming for some sort of drug- and it lay on her sweating stomach, right on top of her. It stretched out on her skin, purring idly. Her withdrawl symptoms paused for just a moment as she stared at her pet of four years.  
She shoved herself from the floor, picking it up. Her mind stopped racing for five seconds, just long enough for her to realize that she was sweating, shaking, crying on the floor of her apartment, almost completely naked from withdrawl symptoms, hugging a chubby cat to her chest.  
She shoved her face into her cat’s fur. The only other person who would have seen her like this and comforted her would have been John. Which is why she named her cat John.

She sighed and, feeling bile rising into her mouth, had to make the quick choice to either throw up on the floor or drag herself all the way to the bathr  
She threw up on the floor. 

God, she needed drugs. Right now. Right now.

She coughed and her cat nuzzled her chin before hopping up and sitting down on her chair, watching over her.   
She couldn’t bring herself to stand, let alone go out and get a fix like the disgusting junkie she was. Crying naked on the floor of her apartment was even worse when there was puke right before her head. 

Ms. Hudson knocked on her door. “Dear? Philip won’t stop calling. He’s worried sick about you.”  
Sherlock didn’t say anything. She just lay there in a cold quivering heap, completely frozen, like that would somehow make everyone else in the world cease to exist.  
“Dear?” Creak of an opening door. “Sherlock!”  
“Please just don’t. Please. Please.”  
“…Sherlock, let me get you a blanket or something.”  
“No. No. Leave. Please. Please.”  
“Let me call Philip.”  
“NO.”  
“At least to let him know you’re okay.”  
“NO. NO. He’ll come over.”  
“He’s going to be worried sick about you all night.”  
“I don’t care. I don’t care about that. And I don’t care about him.” Vomit started to rise in her throat again and she coughed. It was wet.

Philip stood downstairs, not far from Ms. Hudson. Sherlock would have known if she wasn’t suffering from withdrawl. He rubbed his temples.   
Sherlock didn’t care about him? That wasn’t surprising. But she needed him. And that was that. He went up the stairs as the sound of her throwing up hit them both.  
Ms Hudson stopped him. “I’m sorry. You really… you don’t want to. I’m sorry, Philip.”  
“…I know I don’t want to. But I need to.”  
He entered the room and closed her door, murmuring a goodbye to Ms. Hudson. He walked past Sherlock, took an already stained sheet from her chaotically messy closet, and threw it over her before carefully picking her up and sitting her half-upright against her chair, ignoring her slurred, mumbled protests.

Both Anderson and John watched over her that night.

**Author's Note:**

> Think that will work? Like it? This might work. IIIIIIIIII don't know. Fun to write though.


End file.
